id: 160795
accession number: 1999.118.2
share license status: Copyrighted
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1999.118.2
updated: 2023-08-23 23:45:43.161000
Ode to My Mother: Untitled, 1995. Louise Bourgeois (American, 1911–2010), Editions du Solstice, Harlan & Weaver. Etching and drypoint; platemark: 11.9 x 24.3 cm (4 11/16 x 9 9/16 in.); sheet: 30 x 29.8 cm (11 13/16 x 11 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dr. Gerard and Phyllis Seltzer Fund 1999.118.2 © The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY© The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
title: Untitled
title in original language:
series: Ode to My Mother
series in original language:
creation date: 1995
creation date earliest: 1995
creation date latest: 1995
current location:
creditline: Dr. Gerard and Phyllis Seltzer Fund
copyright: © The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY© The Easton Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
---
culture: America
technique: etching and drypoint
department: Prints
collection: PR - Etching
type: Print
find spot:
catalogue raisonne:
---
CREATORS
* Louise Bourgeois (American, 1911–2010) - artist
* Editions du Solstice - publisher
* Harlan & Weaver - printer
---
measurements: Platemark: 11.9 x 24.3 cm (4 11/16 x 9 9/16 in.); Sheet: 30 x 29.8 cm (11 13/16 x 11 3/4 in.)
state of the work:
edition of the work: 35/45
support materials:
description: Dieux Donné handmade wove paper
watermarks:
inscriptions:
inscription: numbered 35/45
translation:
remark:
inscription: signed and dated 1995, in graphite below platemark
translation:
remark:
---
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: Picturing Motherhood Now
opening date: 2021-10-16T04:00:00
Picturing Motherhood Now. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 16, 2021-March 13, 2022).
---
LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
---
PROVENANCE
(Pettibone Fine Art, New York, NY)
date: ?-1999
footnotes:
citations:
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
date: June 7, 1999
footnotes:
citations:
---
fun fact:
digital description:
wall description:
Louise Bourgeois uses art to express personal concerns and obsessions. One of the dominant themes of her work is her own youth, which she considers a magical, mysterious, and dramatic time. Many of her deeply symbolic sculptures, drawings, and etchings address her childhood relationship with her parents. In Ode to My Mother, the spider, an insect known for entrapping victims in its web, serves for Bourgeois as a caring mother figure, protecting her offspring from harm. These nine illustrations, which were issued in a portfolio accompanied by poetic text in French and English, capture the committed but delicate love between daughter and mother. Both Bourgeois and her mother, whom she called her best friend, repaired tapestries in the family business. Like spiders, they were weavers. Bourgeois once described her mother as deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat, and useful as a spider.
---
RELATED WORKS
---
CITATIONS
---
IMAGES